


When the Moon

by paintedrecs



Series: The Supermoon Series [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Masturbation, Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, POV Stiles, Past Heather/Stiles Stilinski, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Pre-Slash, Stalker Kate Argent, Stiles turns out to also be a little bit of a creeper, Werewolf Derek, Writer Derek Hale, he doesn't really know Derek but he loves listening to his voice from the apartment next door, technically they don't speak in this part - this is the story of Stiles working up the courage to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4901263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedrecs/pseuds/paintedrecs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles straightened awkwardly when his stunningly handsome neighbor walked by. He'd decided on a casual head nod and a smooth "heyyyy," but before he could put any of that into motion, the guy brushed past him as though he hadn't even seen him.</p><p>To be fair, he was holding a rather large box that obscured a good portion of his body, and the neighbor's nose was buried in a book, which it seemed he'd been reading while walking up the stairs.</p><p>"Who does that?" Stiles said, baffled and intrigued, as the door next to his unit clicked shut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> The first bit of this really was meant to be a silly little one shot. I realized after I posted it, though, that I'd created this whole backstory for Stiles along the way, and wanted to explore what he was thinking before he approached Derek.
> 
> Each section can be read separately, although this one may be more satisfying if you're familiar with the [first part](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4889152). The final return to Derek's POV is [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4908463).

The day Stiles moved in next to the world's most attractive man, he was wearing a backwards baseball cap, an old high school lacrosse shirt with the sleeves torn off so it'd fit over his biceps, and a pair of faded jeans that somehow both strained _and_ sagged. He'd hit several late growth spurts during college - finally coming into his own, Lydia had said approvingly, before turning him down again - but his shopping habits hadn't kept pace. Life was too busy, and the supply of money too thin, to bother with new clothes when the old ones were perfectly serviceable.

Even so, he straightened awkwardly when the stunningly handsome neighbor walked by. He'd decided on a casual head nod and a smooth "heyyyy," but before he could put any of that into motion, the guy brushed past him as though he hadn't even seen him.

To be fair, he was holding a rather large box that obscured a good portion of his body, and the neighbor's nose was buried in a book, which it seemed he'd been reading while walking up the stairs.

"Who does that?" Stiles said, baffled and intrigued, as the door next to his unit clicked shut.

The "who" turned out to be Derek Hale, which Stiles discovered after a quick trek to snoop around the mailboxes. Apartment 8, no other name on the box, so, presumably, single. Or at least not living with his significant other.

Not that he had any intention of pursuing that. His last relationship - Heather, beautiful, funny, and a good friend, but missing that indefinable chemistry that'd make it last - was too fresh from a breakup for him to consider jumping right in to something else. Of course, there were options other than full on dinners and dates and movies and roses, but casual sex with the guy who literally lived next door to you seemed like a bad idea. Bad enough for even him to discard without spending more time pondering its implications.

That didn't stop him from pausing in his tracks whenever he saw Derek around the building, and wishing he could come up with a solid reason to talk to him. In the early days, it would have been easy enough. As time went on, though, "Hey, I'm Stiles; I just moved in," turned to, "Hey, I'm Stiles; I've lived here for five months and we've never spoken, and I'm not sure you know I exist."

After eight months, he gave up on the idea of ever talking to Derek. Or to any of his neighbors, for that matter; it was a weirdly silent building, with tenants who preferred to keep to themselves.

He was, as far as he could tell, the youngest person in the building. Derek probably had three to five years on him, judging from his perfectly groomed beard and the subtle lines of maturity in his face. Everyone else was at least thirty years older. One of the oldest, who teetered to Unit 5 to slam his door before Stiles passed by, was probably pushing eighty. Maybe even ninety, although he'd been rather spry.

Used to the near-constant hubbub of campus dorms, then off-campus student housing, he initially had some trouble adjusting to the fact that he never heard a hint of life from the apartments surrounding his. Sure, the pipes might creak and slosh on occasion, and he sometimes heard violin music piping softly from the floor below, but otherwise? He felt like he was the only living person in the building.

Initially, he hated it. He missed being able to stream in and out of his friends' spaces, interrupting their studies and starting up a competitive game of Mario Kart at a moment's notice. He especially missed Scott, who'd stayed on to finish up his degree. His best friend, who'd been a daily part of his life for as long as he could remember, had a couple years left before he could return to Beacon Hills to take over the vet's office upon Deaton's retirement.

Stiles was lonely, and regretting moving back, when he'd had an entire world of opportunities stretching out in front of him. His dad claimed to be happy to have him around, but he occasionally glimpsed a tightness around his eyes when they talked about work, and his future.

You're supposed to go to college, figure out what you want to do with your life, then dig in and work towards that goal until you've been deemed a success. By yourself, maybe. Or by society? Certainly by your old classmates as they scrolled through your Facebook statuses.

Lydia was on a clear fast track to that kind of tangible success. Scott would return to Beacon Hills, settle down, maybe work things out with Allison Argent again, and actually get married this time. Allison herself was thriving as his dad's newest deputy. Even Greenberg was, last he checked, off on some beautiful island studying sea turtles or something.

Stiles had no idea what he wanted to do. He was interested in everything, and nothing. He was smart enough to easily navigate his classes, racking up top grades and earning his professors' confused respect, but he changed majors three times and wound up with a dual business and philosophy degree that made sense to no one, including himself.

He bounced around jobs a little in Beacon Hills, too, staying with his dad while he signed with every temp agency in a ninety mile radius and tried to find a job that would stick. He filed paperwork, answered phones, sorted socks, chopped potatoes, dug actual ditches, planted trees, and tried out a brief run as night watchman in a local factory. 

He reconnected with Heather, reminiscing about their close-knit elementary school friendship before their districts had split and they'd lost touch. They dated for a couple months, then ended it amicably, and still met up occasionally for coffee and to complain about their jobs.

Somewhere along the way, he stumbled across an ad for a woodshop assistant. Having no idea what it'd entail, he immediately signed up.

Satomi turned out to be an exceptional craftswoman, and a surprisingly patient teacher. Considering - well, considering Stiles was her student. Working in the shop held his attention, though, in the way office work and school had never effectively done. There was a soothing, peaceful element to it, as sandpaper and saws rasped over the wood, but the sharp blades and dangerously whirring equipment made him focus to a degree he'd never really managed before.

At first, he cut where Satomi told him to, and processed simple, repetitive orders that even a newbie couldn't mess up too badly. Before too long, she'd begun welcoming his suggestions, and setting him loose - within reason - on a few projects of his own.

His first independent piece was a small coffee table with intricately carved designs and a surface that he polished to a buttery shine. Letting that one go was rough, but Satomi assured him that he'd create plenty more, and gave him a raise and a promotion.

He used his first post-raise paycheck to move into his own place, finding a perfect little apartment that he now suspected had only opened because the previous tenant had died. 

It was the right price, and the right size for one person: a small one bedroom with a balcony that added a sense of spaciousness to the slightly cramped rooms. His unit, in fact, was one of only two with that feature. The rest had big picture windows that soaked in a lot of sunlight, and were constantly cracked open during the summer months to let the heat escape.

That's how he'd first heard Derek's voice.

The thing was...see, Stiles had spent months under the assumption that he'd moved into a complex with unusually thick walls. The exterior of the building was composed of a flat, ugly concrete, so it made some sense. He'd never heard a peep from either side of his apartment - someone else's television competing with his, or telephone conversations, or, well, whatever it was that people did when they were home alone at night.

Operating with that set of facts, he'd indulged in the kinds of fantasies he'd never felt comfortable with in his dad's house (unless his dad was definitively on a late night shift and wouldn't be swinging by for dinner) or in the paper-thin campus housing. 

He pulled out his box of toys and ordered some new ones, testing a series of vibrators and dildos that stretched even his vivid imagination and left him sweaty, gasping into his sheets, and well-satisfied.

He wasn't working in a field that justified the money he and his dad had spent on his tuition, or that would make it easy to pay back his loans. But he liked it. It took him longer than it should have to acknowledge this, even to himself. Using his hands, creating something, and knowing that someone would be placing it in their home or office: it invested his time with meaning.

He didn't have a significant other, but he was busy and inventive enough to not worry much about it. His apartment sometimes felt more isolated than he preferred, but it was his space, and there was something freeing about dropping his shoes in the middle of the floor one night and knowing he'd be the only one to trip over them in the morning.

So, in month eight, when Derek from Apartment 8 opened his windows to let in the cool evening breeze, Stiles was lounging on that corner of his balcony, drink in one hand and book dangling loosely from the other. He blinked sleepily at the sunset, bruising the sky a deep purple-pink, his limbs thick with exhaustion from a long day at work, and thought, "I could get used to this."

Derek's voice murmured in response, and Stiles jerked around, sloshing his beer over his shirt. There was, obviously, no one in sight, and the windows in the bordering units weren't at an angle where he could see in. Nor, he presumed, studying them more carefully than he'd previously bothered, could their occupants see him. 

The voice continued, a soft, soothing rumble that rose and fell in an almost melodic train, trailed off, and started again in the same pattern. There weren't the kinds of gaps you'd expect when someone was holding a two way conversation, so, unless Derek was far more chatty than he'd seemed from those too-rare glimpses, a phone call was an unlikely culprit.

He leaned forward, setting his bottle down and wiping his fingers on his jeans, and tried to distinguish actual words. He gave up after a few minutes and settled back into his chair, closing his eyes and letting the voice wash over him.

No, he thought. His life wasn't half bad.

The next, inevitable conclusion was a little more disconcerting. 

About a week later, he was lying on his bed, cock cupped loosely in his hand, deciding whether to go with a quick jerk off, followed by a retreat to the balcony to browse the internet - possibly, hopefully, with Derek as his soundtrack - or with an extended exploration of the new toy that he'd been too worn out to try for the last several days.

Work had picked up its pace lately, in ways he wasn't free to discuss with his dad, or even Scott. At the six month marker, Satomi had decided he'd proved his trustworthiness, and she sat him down in her office, shut the door, and flashed him her fangs.

To be fair to her, it wasn't quite that abrupt. She'd started with a mini speech that he'd only half-paid attention to, hoping she was working up to another raise. He wanted to upgrade his laptop, which had started to make worrying noises when he left it unplugged for too long.

What it meant, though, was that her cautions about secrecy and discretion and respect for other cultures filtered in one ear and out the other, and he leaped out of his chair, tangled his legs in its frame, and gave himself a mild concussion on the corner of her desk.

The next thing she showed him, after putting away her fangs and the disturbing sprout of furry sideburns, was how to draw pain from a wounded human. He watched in awe as his headache snaked up her veins in sluggish black trails, then asked if she could teach him how to do that.

Unfortunately, she could not. But, what she could do was teach him a little magic. She'd sensed something in him - a spark of potential, she said, which came around rarely, and was even less frequently tapped and developed through proper training.

She had some magic of her own, she told him modestly; also rare, for werewolves, and there were many limitations, due to the competing magics in her blood, that she'd never be able to stretch past. She used what she could in her work. Charms for protection, for stability. Nothing dramatic, and with only enough strength to nudge at human brains with offers of comfort and encouragement.

Stiles, she thought, could do far more, and she wanted to help him to discover the range of his powers.

It'd sounded fantastic. He pictured wands, or fire shooting from his fingertips, or pulling water from the air. What he didn't imagine was the amount of hard work that went into it. Hours of meditating, of identifying and training every muscle in his body to respond when he called upon it.

It _was_ fantastic. Invigorating. Transformative. But more tiring than learning simple protective charms had any right to be.

He stroked languidly, opting for the easy path for another night. He pushed his shoulders into his sheets, sighed heavily, and cast about for something more arousing than the scents of smoke and sawdust still clinging to his skin.

Maybe it was because he started thinking about Derek - his broad shoulders, soft-looking hair, multicolored eyes, and the way his trim waist narrowed to a perfectly shaped ass. There were probably moral pitfalls to fantasizing about someone without their knowledge, but he was basically a stranger, and was likely to remain so. It wasn't like he'd ever know, or be harassed by Stiles trying to act on it.

He twisted his wrist, just so, and sped up a little, moaning and biting his lip and imagining he could hear that low voice in his ear. Then, suddenly, he did. His hand tightened, his eyes shot open, he groaned in surprise, and he came, abruptly and messily.

 _His_ windows weren't open. He knew that much, because he'd been too tired when he got home to bother with anything other than stripping off his clothes and collapsing onto his bed.

He winced, wiped his hand on his chest, and curved his body towards the wall. It wasn't his imagination. It wasn't loud, either, but Derek's voice was, without question, murmuring just on the other side. 

"Oh hell," Stiles said, then clapped his non-sticky hand over his mouth. Because if he could hear Derek - whose voice was always pitched low - the walls were substantially thinner than he'd thought. Which meant that Derek - "oh, hell," he said again, far quieter this time.

He reserved jerking off for the shower over the next couple of days, embarrassed and furtive, as though he'd done something wrong. When the weekend arrived, and he had enough time to sit back and actually think through it all, he shook his head at his nonsensical paranoia. 

It wasn't like Derek had ever complained, or thumped on the wall, or glared at him in the hallways. They still hadn't interacted, and if he _had_ been hearing Stiles all this time, you know what? That was apartment life. Sometimes you knew what your neighbors were up to, and part of the neighborly code was never bringing it up.

It did make him, briefly, feel more awkward about jerking it to Derek's voice, but that faded quickly enough, too. If they could hear each other, and Derek kept talking or reading or whatever the hell it was that he did while Stiles was moaning loudly into his pillow, he couldn't possibly mind that much.

A corner of his brain sat around, feeling soggy and sad because Derek didn't seem to be impacted by him in any way, but he kicked it out of its unwarranted sulk and told it to go back to figuring out how to weave harmony and compassion into the etchings on his newest project.

During month ten, his interest in Derek picked back up. Not that it had ever died out fully, but there was only so much obsessing you could do before you started to feel pitiful about it. 

Satomi had discovered that his ability to meditate in silence was minimal, at best. He did better if she talked to him throughout those portions of his training - about werewolves, pack dynamics, and how she'd come to Beacon Hills. For some reason, he'd assumed that she'd been born there, tied to the land.

She shook her head, crushing a complex set of ingredients with a mortar and pestle.

"I’m watching over it for a dear friend,” she told him. “It had been their territory for generations, and will be again.”

“Where are they now? Shouldn’t they be here, protecting it, like you said it’s a pack’s job to do?”

She scraped the mixture into a vial, capping it off carefully. “Every family has its tragedies,” she said. “They’ve carried Beacon Hills through dark times, and now that it’s at peace, the Alpha has chosen to rest. Her eldest will take her place here, when she’s ready.”

Stiles thought through what he knew of Beacon Hills history, and its prominent families. “The Hales,” he finally said. “The old house in the Preserve. I’ve never made that connection before.”

Satomi nodded, as though she’d merely been waiting for him to catch up.

“What was their tragedy, though?” he asked. “The house has been empty for years, but it’s still in good shape, as far as I know. I’ve never heard of anything negative, or particularly gossip-worthy, connected to them.” They’d been substantial donors to most of the public buildings in town, and there was an entire Hale wing of the library; other than that, he only had vague images of a dark-haired family who’d moved away while he was young.

She neatly labeled the vial and set it in a rack, which she normally kept in a cabinet that Stiles wasn’t yet permitted to touch. “Talia had a younger brother, Peter. Handsome, charming, and with a thirst for power that he’d never achieve in his lifetime.”

“So he tried to take it,” Stiles finished.

“Talia’s one of the most powerful Alphas to be seen in generations. But when it’s your own family betraying you, it’s not easy to fight." The sorrow in her voice was thick; Stiles gathered that she must have known both Talia and Peter well, and been equally shocked and horrified by his actions. "Her daughter, Laura, stopped him, and was heavily scarred as a result. Once Peter was taken care of, the rest of the family left - to heal, and to release the tainted memories. Only one of them has chosen to return so far, and I’m watching over him, as well.”

Stiles unfolded his legs and stood up, forgoing any further pretense of the afternoon’s exercise. “Did you know, when you hired me?”

“Not everything is a conspiracy, Stiles,” she answered calmly. “The fact that Derek’s your neighbor had nothing to do with you being hired here, or with me wanting to help you achieve something special and unique.”

He deflated, reaching out to touch the vial, which she moved out of range. “I’ve never spoken to him, anyway,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t be much of a danger.”

“You might be surprised,” she said, but she refused to answer any further questions about the Hales and forced him to begin his meditation over - from the beginning, taking it seriously this time.

Derek was the oddest werewolf he’d ever seen. Not, he supposed, that he’d met many. Any, other than Satomi. But every story she’d told him, and he’d consequently researched, had painted them as fierce, powerful, and opinionated: the kind of people who would turn heads the moment they entered a room. Derek certainly turned _his_ head, every time he saw him, but he was, in general, remarkably good at flying under the radar.

He read out loud, or talked to himself, in his apartment. He carried the other tenants' packages from the ground floor mailboxes to their doors, so they wouldn't have to lug the items up the stairs themselves. (Before Stiles had seen this happen, he'd always assumed they had a particularly dedicated mail carrier; after, he flushed and breathed thanks for the discreet packaging choices of the sites he ordered from.)

He went for long runs, returning with wet hair, healthily flushed skin, and a tank top that clung to his heaving chest. He was periodically dragged out of the building by two equally attractive friends, who Stiles now suspected were also werewolves. This hypothesis was supported by the fact that the first time he made eye contact with the blonde - in a leather jacket, with bright red lips - she gave him an exaggerated wink and bared slightly-too-sharp teeth at him before sauntering down the stairs. Derek, also wearing a leather jacket and looking slightly sulky about it, didn’t even notice.

Stiles sighed, locked himself in his apartment, and played music at the volume he’d grown accustomed to, from his pre-wall-realization days. After an hour, he threw on his clubbing clothes, went to Jungle, got uproariously drunk, and made out with a good-looking guy with dark hair and dimples. When the guy tried to take it further, though, he shook his head and backed away. He felt unsettled, and he wasn’t sure why.

The following month, he picked up additional information from a completely unexpected source.

In high school, he'd made a point of stopping by the station to check on his dad and share a meal with him. When he was cycling through his evening shifts, there were too many days where they never saw each other for more than a few passing moments, and Stiles couldn't let that stand. He'd picked the habit up again after moving back, and occasionally hung out in the station even when his dad wasn't around. 

Allison, Parrish, Tara, and a few of the other deputies had become some of his closest friends in town. Parrish and Tara were particularly dedicated gossips, and a couple dinners a week kept him solidly on top of the most interesting Beacon Hills news.

Allison kept to herself a little more, until she realized Stiles's epic broship with her on-again off-again boyfriend didn't mean he passed on all of their interactions, word for word. After that, she rejoined with gusto, sending them into convulsions of laughter as she related stories like Mrs. Jenkins vs. The Attic Intruder, whom she'd beaten heartily with a stick before calling the police. 

When they arrived, they pulled a battered mannequin out of the attic and a sheepish grandson out of his bedroom. He'd paid for it with months of a carefully scraped together allowance, then hidden it because he was afraid his parents wouldn't approve of his Project Runway-inspired dreams. 

"It gave me a new respect, and fear, for Mrs. Jenkins," Allison revealed, shaking her head and smiling at the memory. "She pulled her stick back out and told her son to drag her old sewing machine out of storage, because she had a boy to teach." 

"Good parenting," he tested, and watched the way her expression turned soft and sad before she shielded it again. Before the last breakup, spurred on by long distance and a few fights that got blown out of proportion, she and Scott had started talking about kids. Whether they wanted any, and how many, and when.

Scott did send out feelers every now and then, and Stiles simply countered with, "Still single; you should call her," every time. 

"Speaking of dysfunctional families," she ventured. "My aunt's back in town. I had dinner with her and my parents last night."

"Ugh," he said feelingly. He'd met Kate during Scott and Allison's first round of dating, way back in high school. She'd given off weird flirtatious vibes, as though she was competing with her own daughter to be the fairest Argent in town, then told her sister-in-law some outrageous lie about Scott that caused the first breakup.

"I know," she agreed. "She keeps popping back up, every couple of years, like that gopher you thought you'd finally gotten rid of."

"What's she after this time?" Tara asked, who'd been in the department for as long as Stiles could remember, and always had her finger on the pulse of the town.

"I'm not sure." She tapped her fork over her salad. "She somehow got a place a couple blocks from her ex, though, so she may be trying to hassle him again. Actually, she's in your neighborhood, Stiles, so keep an eye out."

"Who's her ex?" He hadn't kept close tabs on her comings and goings since that first round; this past year was actually the most time he'd spent around Allison, without a longing-eyed Scott constantly around as a buffer. He'd enjoyed getting to know her, on her own merit. It made him a lot sadder about the last breakup, and more hopeful about them finding their way back together.

"A guy named Derek," she said. "From how she was describing it, he may even be in your building. A lot of snide comments about," she shot him a look, as though not sure whether the next bit would be offensive, "being in your 20s and still stuck in a penniless job and a crappy one bedroom apartment in an ugly ass building."

"My apartment's not crappy," he argued, not protesting the point about the building itself. The exterior was remarkably unattractive, but the units themselves were nice. On the older side, with 70s-era countertops and carpet instead of modern wood flooring, but clean and comfortable. "Wait, what happened with this ex? Is this the one with a restraining order?"

"No, Darren's in Texas. That's why she moved back the time before last. Not sure what happened this time. Derek - I don't know that much about him, other than her completely unhealthy obsession with him. My dad met him a couple times, though, and said he's a pretty good guy. Quiet. Way too nice for Kate, obviously."

"Fair description for most people," he snorted, and Tara laughed. Parrish looked a little lost, but that was only because he was lucky enough to have not encountered her yet. Come to think of it, "Do not date her," he warned, pointing at him. "Kate Argent. Tall, pretty, dirty blonde hair, big dogs, mean smile. If she hits on you, run."

"You think he's joking," Allison said, "but for once, he's really not. She's bad news. There's a rumor she actually tried to strangle one of them - in North Carolina, about ten years ago - but she always manages to slip away before she gets in real trouble."

They all grimaced, Tara looked like she wanted to drive over to Kate's and arrest her before she had a chance to do any further damage, and Allison stabbed at her salad before changing the subject yet again.

Stiles got wrapped up in work over the following month, perfecting a tricky round of spellwork and wood carving. He only saw Derek a few times, from a distance. 

The first time, he was rolling his eyes but smiling for once, squeezing into a car with a group of beautiful women. The blonde friend was wearing a leather miniskirt and a tight white tank top that defied the cooling weather and proclaimed, in sparkling letters, that she was a bride-to-be. She threw her arms around Derek, smacked him loudly on the cheek, leaving a clear lipstick mark, then pushed him into the car and slid in next to him. When they pulled away from the curb, he was rubbing his cheek and leaning over to pretend to snap at her ear.

They were not, Stiles concluded, very good at hiding being wolves. It was a wonder he hadn't figured it out much earlier. 

The second time, Derek was standing by the mailboxes, holding the empty slot for Apartment 8 open, his shoulders more slumped than usual. Stiles hesitated on the stairs but chickened out before he could think of anything to say.

The third time: well, that was the one that mattered.

Satomi had reminded him five times in the preceding week that the Supermoon was approaching. At first, he'd prodded her with questions, figuring it was a pivotal marker in werewolf society and must have some deep, cultural significance.

"No, Stiles," she'd kept insisting. It was rare, wasn't that sufficient? And interesting, and beautiful. And, she finally admitted, there were some old, unsubstantiated legends that claimed it could be a source of luck.

"Like, I should buy a lottery ticket?" he asked, considering whether he'd take his dad or Scott on a Caribbean cruise, then feeling like a loser when he realized those were his only realistic options.

"If you want to waste your money, go ahead," she said, but he bought a couple anyway, just in case. She'd said it was more about personal fortunes than monetary ones - as though, if you took the time to watch for the moon that night, you'd be setting your life on its correct path. You'd be aligning yourself with the universe and fitting into the place that best fit you.

Not that she believed it, she clarified, refusing to take the lottery ticket he'd bought for her. But there was no reason to _not_ check out the moon, so she sent him home early and closed up the shop.

He cooked dinner, took a plate and a couple beers out to his balcony, and listened to Derek as he watched the sun sink below the treeline. When it was dark enough, and he'd started to shiver, he bundled up in a jacket and headed downstairs to get a better view.

He was cursing Satomi ten minutes into it, pulling out his phone and texting Scott to capture all his excellent language for posterity. He'd wandered around for a while, figuring it was a good excuse to take a walk and see what the folks in all the surrounding houses were up to. Clumps of residents he'd never seen before were milling about, shivering on their stoops or wrapping themselves in hats and coats and scarves and staring up at the sky. 

There was something satisfyingly communal about it, he admitted, and put his phone away so he could shove his cold fingers in his jacket pockets. People who normally didn't interact were exchanging complaints about the thin cloud layer, or engaging in idle chitchat about other aspects of their day. He circled the block again, then stopped on the corner.

Derek, in his typical disregard for blending into human norms, was standing half a block away, the street lamp spilling golden light along his long throat - thrown back in an obscene curve, eyes fixed on the sky - and in shadowy patterns down to his absurdly chiseled abs. Because Derek was shirtless, loose sweatpants barely clinging to his marble-carved hipbones, looking for all intents and purposes like a truck on its way to the Beacon County Museum had taken a detour and dropped off the centerpiece of its latest display.

Other than - did his slippers have sheep on them? Second question - what self-respecting grown man wore big, fuzzy slippers in public, and where could Stiles find a pair? He'd edged closer before he'd realized it, trying to decide how big of a wolfy cliche Derek really was.

He heard a jingle from down the block and turned, a moment after Derek had spun in place, wide-eyed and hunted. By the time he registered Kate Argent heading their direction, her huskies pulling happily at their leashes, trying to tug their way free of her deceptively iron grip, Derek had disappeared. He heard the soft slapping of his slippers and caught a glimpse of their apartment gate swinging shut.

"Stiles," Kate greeted in a threateningly friendly tone as she approached. One of the dogs stuck its nose into the bushes, snuffling loudly and ignoring his entire existence, and he sidestepped as the other cocked a leg and tried to pee on him.

"Kate," he said, grinning back at her in what Scott had alternately called his grinch and murder smile. "What are you doing so far from jail on a night like this?"

"Funny," she said, and if looks could kill, his skin would already be peeled off his bones and waiting to be fried for her dinner. "I didn't know you were still here. Wasn't your dad boasting, not too long ago, about his son's success at some fancy university?" She gave him another cold once over. "I must have been thinking of some other sheriff."

"Funny," he snapped back. "Wasn't my dad talking, just the other day, about the multiple arrest warrants waiting on his desk for a criminal matching your description? Maybe I should give him a call. Let him know exactly where he can find you."

For a second, her composure faltered, snapping back into place before he could get his fingers fully under it and tear it away. He clenched his jaw. Almost too close to home, but she knew she was in the clear.

"Have a good night, Stiles," she said, shaking the leashes and nudging her dogs on their way. "And watch out for yourself. You never know what kinds of creatures might be lurking about."

"Speak for yourself," he muttered, shaking a little with anger. He made sure she wasn't circling back around to try again, and glanced up at his building.

Derek hadn't retreated all the way inside yet. Stiles's heart flipped a little at the sight of him - leaning from the second floor landing, his hair thick and messy, his thoughtful frown directed up at the stars.

He drank in the view for a bit, then started to turn away, shoving his hands back into his pockets. His pinky caught against something, a hangnail snagging and ripping loose as he hissed and yanked his hand to his mouth to suck on the wound.

"What the hell," he said, gingerly reaching in to touch the two lottery tickets he'd forgotten were in there.

He looked up at Derek again, his fingertips grazing the tickets' edges.

He breathed in, deeply, and set his shoulders. All he had to do was say hi.

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a [fic recs blog](http://paintedrecs.tumblr.com/) and a [regular blog](http://paintedlandscape.tumblr.com/), and you're welcome to find me on either/both. I tend to ramble more on [twitter](https://twitter.com/paintedrecs).


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